edmondsmicah As many others have noted, the photography for this film is noteworthy, and the production elements do indeed bleed into an Australian style I can identify with as a resident and citizen. I'm familiar with Simon Baker's work and it was interesting to see him try a hand at directing. I look forward to seeing him have another crack with a story which deserves to be told, instead of the meandering, unremarkable stroll of unlinked scenes this screenplay boasts.It's difficult to say where the fault lies, but there's a remarkable lack of "big-picture" focus across what little narrative is here. There are far too many scenes that barely take up any time and barely relate to other scenes. So much time is wasted watching characters do so little. There's so little through line or plot that the film relies on sparse retrospective narration to give even an ounce of purpose to it's movement. And despite being directed by one of the most implicitly charming Australian actors working today, the film is devoid of a single likable character. I don't blame the lead actor for this, but any interest I had in seeing his journey play out at all waned extremely quickly, because he has no admirable traits or goals, and those who surround him are similar. The character has so little agency, traits come and go. The teenage tropes the story plays with from time to time are played for too straight, as if someone believed the Australian coming-of-age plot hidden in here required to tone of a moody British independent film. The sexual parts of this film aren't so much off putting and poorly handled (although they are) as they are an indicator of how little steam the initial premise of the narrative has. - Boring kid likes surfing. Kid gets scared sometimes. Cool. I guess they do what they can with that before moving onto some tactless pedophilia subject matter with zero-self awareness, which also ultimately goes nowhere. All in all not a good use of anyone's time. Not sure I'll remember a single thing about it in a year, except the bile that rose up in my throat during the bag scenes, causing me to momentarily leave a theatre for the first time in my living memory. Earn your emotion.

amhunt-62478 Valiant first directing attempt by Baker. This is worth watching for the scenery of the South coast of Western Australia alone. The surf sequences are also very well put together, and really draw the viewer into the waves and the ocean. That's about where my praise ends though. Frankly, the film never quite achieves the heights that some reviews claim. Unlike the presentation of the scenery and surfing, the characters are not well drawn out, and struggle to develop any telling depth. The boy coming of age, the crazy mate, the high school girlfriend, the stereotyped parents, the mentor. All of them are frequently used templates by the author (Winton), this feels like the same tale he's told before, just with different characters and setting.

waldoc-46531 I read each new Tim Winton book as they come out. He's one of Australia's best writers and his work is certainly the most authentic Australiana. So, even though I've admired Simon Baker's work for many years, I worried that the film would be hard-pressed to match the quality of the written story. The anxiety was wasted; Breath the movie is a superb rendering of the book, managing to capture the moods, emotions, fears love and the allure of surfing in an understated and intimate way, even while omitting sections of the book, which was a complex 215 pages, and redirecting the thrust of the novel. At almost two hours, it's paced in a tempo that matches the period, the people and the lifestyle and flows past like the beautiful waves at Barney's. The young actors are brilliant but congratulations to all concerned because so is the film.

john-64138 I am not Australian. The film really didnt do it for me. The characters were too simple too one-dimensional. The "obsession" pretence didnt work. The plastic bag should have been omitted from the film version. Completely needless. Just WTF?